In this episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott and Greg share the top stories in supply chain for the week for the Supply Chain Buzz.

Amanda Luton (00:00:05):

It’s time for supply chain. Now broadcasting live from the supply chain capital of the country. Atlanta, Georgia heard around the world. Supply chain. Now spotlights the best in all things. Supply chain, the people, the technologies, the best practices and the critical issues of the day. And now here are your hosts.

Scott Luton (00:00:29):

Hey, good morning, Scott Luton, Greg white with you here on supply chain. Now welcome to today’s live stream, Greg, what show is this today? I’m so excited for this. I don’t know exactly why, but I got a ton of energy back over this weekend. So I’m really excited about it. I mean the supply chain buzz. There we go. Scott Luton, wait, Scott Luton and Greg white here with supply chain. Now on the supply chain buzz. That is right. And our aim is to raise your supply chain IQ. That is right. Uh, so no shortage of topics to dive into today. What a busy week it’s been across the global business community, especially the supply chain global supply chain community, uh, welcome you all to weigh in and we’re going to cover four stories a day. We’re also gonna talk about a couple of new series that we’ve recently launched.

Scott Luton (00:01:24):

And, but the star of the show here is our audience. And we’re looking forward to the observations and comments that they bring to the table own these developments as we cover them. Right, Greg, we are indeed, and some faves already in Joseph Maretta, Benjamin Golde playing Lisa Kinski. That’s a new name to me as Lisa joined us before. You’ll have to let us know welcome Lisa, regardless if you’re a veteran of the buzz or a newbie today. Welcome a CEP. Tarci and if I, and I apologize. That’s good. All right. Good. Good. Good. Well welcome. Thank you for joining us at Tarci. Uh, Jeffrey Miller who had a lot of great contributions last week on the live stream with, uh, Jeff Cashman. Great to have him here, uh, Danson via LinkedIn, Kathy, via LinkedIn, Felicia of the reverse logistics association. Great to have you. And of course, one more professor Mohit AA from the air capital of the world, right?

Scott Luton (00:02:27):

Greg where’s that tell everybody where that is. That is which stall Kansas Gosha and a lot, one more Patrick Kelly is here in house today, CEO, founder of the produce podcast. We’ve got our first show joint show with Patrick coming up later this week, which we’ll be releasing in the weeks to come, uh, stick around. One of the companies I talked about on tequila sunrise last week company called crisp. Uh, they may be coming on the show in the, in the near future. So I actually have some interesting news for you, Patrick Stephan, of course you can’t do a buzz without Stephan Barb Sexton. It says greetings from Phoenix, Barb, of course, with the, uh, powerful Omnia partners team. Great to have you here with Barb, uh, and we’ll get to everyone else here momentarily, but quick programming. Hey, if you enjoyed today’s live stream, be sure to check out podcasts wherever you get your podcasts from.

Scott Luton (00:03:29):

And we’re going to talk about a couple of those mid show, right? So I think so. So they know what they are. Yes, I think so. All right. So with no further ado, Greg, yes. Dive into this first story and I’ll lay it out a little bit and then I want you to weigh in on what you see here, but this is, this should not be new to anybody we’ve been talking about SKU rationalization four weeks, uh, if not months, uh, and, and by the way, Fred Tolbert, great. Have you back here, he says, he’s feeling the buzz good stuff there from Fred. I am talking directly to you, Fred. All right. So we’ve been talking SKU rationalization forever. Um, according to Emma cost growth and the supply chain DOB team where this story comes from the Coca Cola company based right here in Atlanta has announced a new quote ruthless approach to ski rationalization.

Scott Luton (00:04:22):

Let’s define it first, Greg, let’s make sure everybody’s on the same page. It’s very simple. Simply put skew. Rationalization is a process by which merchants determine if a particular product is kept on the shelf and still produced and sold, or if it should be discontinued based on mainly its profitability, its overall movement, you know how much demand is there for it, right? Yeah. So it’s a constant it’s been around forever. Retailers have been doing this forever and we’ve seen double down on these efforts to just keep product on the shelf in many ways. And the streamlined production here during the pandemic. So Coca Cola is CEO, James Quincy. Greg said, James Quincy, not James Quincy, Greg, but I was talking to you, Greg. Okay, you can have my name if you want, but get what they want. Okay. They get what they want, people get what they want.

Scott Luton (00:05:11):

Alright, mr. Quincy said last week that it companies skew rationalization will be put on steroids, not only applied to individual products, but extended to entire brands, brand rationalization, truly, uh, like most companies in recent weeks, a Coca Cola company has focused on simplifying and prioritizing production to keep certain products on the shelves. Just like we’ve mentioned a second ago, that work has encouraged the company to possibly keep this streamlining approach on a more permanent basis, which probably shouldn’t surprise many folks. Uh, Quincy said that the CEO, mr. Quincy said it quarter two 2020 would be their toughest quarter. And that they’d see the financial gains of this company wide effort in the months to come force. That note like for many companies, Q2 for QT 2020 revenue was down almost 30% for the same quarter over uh, 2019. Uh, one of the first examples of this Coca-Cola initiative, which we talked about a week or two ago, Odwalla juice brand became officially discontinued here at the end of July Odwalla juice brand. If you enjoy it, you better stock up because it’s going away. Unfortunately they’re cutting 300 team members and removing 230 trucks from its refrigerated direct a direct store delivery operation DSD. You’ll probably hear a lot more about that DSD. Yeah. Uh, but did you know Greg Odwalla juice? The whole brand is one of 400 brands that they have at Coke

Greg White (00:06:44):

Cola. I did not know that there were 400 brands that is pretty impressive. I didn’t know. So at Walla is kind of a favorite brand in our household. My eldest daughter was a competitive swimmer in college at Georgia Southern Hale. And um, we didn’t like her drinking, the kind of chemicals, energy drinks or recovery drinks. So it was chocolate milk, Apple juice and Odwalla. Uh, they had something called B monster. I think they moved changed the blueberry bee when monster came out because blueberries are really great for organic energy. So it was a staple in our household to have that stuff around. And it’s kind of a sad day. There are other brands out there, but it’s kind of a sad day to see that go away. Cause it was very good product.

Scott Luton (00:07:37):

Well, it is a sad day, but you know, um, it is not surprising, you know, these days, whether you’re with your, if it’s Coca-Cola products and brands or other food industry brands or for that matter across supply chain, you know, if it’s not driving demand, not driving transactions and revenue right now, most global supply chains have to really focus, uh, to keep especially the, these, uh, especially food and beverage, uh, items on the shelves. Um, so get this one, one more thing. This was interesting to me, Greg. Uh, and, and when I thought about more about it, at least in our household, it makes a lot more sense. So the company, the Coke Cola is going to be focusing more through these efforts on recognizable brands because as their CFO, John Murphy suggested at an industry conference last may, consumers want to get in and out of stores really quick. So naturally they’re going to be picking brands they recognize. And that is one of the factors they’re considering as they go through this brand rationalization, uh, initiative. So Greg more comments, what’s your take? Yeah.

Greg White (00:08:45):

So th so the inverse of ski rationalization is called SKU proliferation, and that has been an issue in the industry for decades. It’s one of those situations where, and I was a merchant merchandiser. Uh, sometimes they’re called category managers. There are all kinds of titles, depending on whether they’re in a CPG brand or whether they’re at a retailer, but their job is to find products that expand reach to new or within the customer base. Right? So you’re always looking for new products, sometimes developing them yourselves or with, with your suppliers. But what happens is you don’t typically rationalize your skew counts. So you don’t peel off those non or lower performers at the bottom because you’re afraid they might then, and this is you’re afraid they might take off. And it becomes a very ethereal, um, management style. And this is a great opportunity for merchants merchandisers and category managers to become more data-driven because the reason that it makes sense to rationalize the skew, and this is important, goes directly to supply chain.

Greg White (00:09:53):

The reason that you would rationalize skews is because it’s costly and difficult to manage that long tail that we always talk about in supply chain, those slow movers with erratic demand, you always are over inventoried on those products. You’re out when you shouldn’t be, they’re very difficult to manage. So this allows companies to do that. So the master of skew rationalization is Costco. They don’t even carry products that have, that are below a certain threshold in volume because too much of the inventory is made up of just in case inventory that sits there and collects dust. So that’s how Coca-Cola will make and save money by doing this.

Scott Luton (00:10:33):

Plus companies are fighting for that shelf space, right? All those third parties, whether it’s Costco or Walmart or whatever else they’ve got, they’ve got to sell it, lots of rationals rationalization just to get on the shelf. And then they gotta fight to keep, uh, stay there.

Greg White (00:10:48):

And that’s a good point. I’m not sure that people, uh, outside the States, certainly, maybe a lot of people in the States don’t realize that Coca Cola pays for the shelf space that they get. They pay the grocery store chain for the run of shelf that they get. And so do a lot of other brands. So, um, they want to make sure they make good use of that shelf space. Yep. Let’s say what the one gang has to say.

Scott Luton (00:11:13):

No, they’re lively this Monday morning. All right. So, uh, reaching back out PA are great to have you here, Isabella. Great to have you here with us today. Uh,

Greg White (00:11:24):

Wilma feelings,

Scott Luton (00:11:26):

Jen. Great to have you. I think we had a couple of comments here. We already saw Fred that he is feeling the buzz love to have you here for it. Always a pleasure. Uh, Judith, if I said that correctly, good morning from the Y. So hope this finds you well, great to have you with us here today. Uh, of course, Sylvia, Judy, part of the supply chain now insiders, uh, Sylvia, we look forward to having you on, on a live stream in the weeks to come

Greg White (00:11:54):

Umar

Scott Luton (00:11:55):

Joining from Maili, Molly versus LinkedIn. Great to have you, uh, Thomas Brinegar. Now Thomas is a veteran that is moving, I think from middle Tennessee to upstate South Carolina and he’s kicking boxes, uh, looking for the next challenge. And George enjoyed the program. Great to have you here, Thomas,

Greg White (00:12:14):

Can you share what your gifts are? Thomas? Maybe somebody right here needs them.

Scott Luton (00:12:18):

That’s a great point, Greg. Yeah, Tom, uh, uh, Thomas, please brag on yourself. Go up a few bullet points for what you do. Maybe what you’re looking for. Alright. First question comes from Stephen. Would you guys say that after reducing skews more than usual, the remaining skews, which are probably the core products increase in quality? That’s a great question,

Greg White (00:12:40):

Greg. First of all, nothing on the planet is better than Coca-Cola. I have tried to kick the habit, but on a sponsor, not as, yeah, not a sponsor. I mean, how could we possibly have any impact on their business? It’s the biggest brand in the world? Um, I’ve been a Coke addict for a lot of years and it’s impossible. The kick. Let me tell you it’s um, I’m a huge fan. I tried diet Coke. Um, and I always go back to Coca-Cola. A lot of people say it’s too sweet, whatever it’s nectar of the gods, but, um, yes, possibly certainly, um, um, the quality of products run on the same line will increase. So I have become a connoisseur of certain products, intimate chocolate donuts. And I can tell when they have run something on the line and, and the box that I got was the first of the run. Cause you can taste just the slightest hint of whatever ran before. Um, so yes, that will undoubtedly have some impact on quality, but more importantly, it will have greater impact on the top and bottom line. I believe Stephen, that it will accrue to the benefit of the core products. In terms of sales. People will go back to those things they love from the things they have diverted to.

Scott Luton (00:13:59):

I don’t know about increasing quality, but I think like we’re seeing it’s increasing the, the consistency and the availability and, and um, you know, it’s eliminating some surprises cause you can, you can focus your resources on certain production lines in case instead of your entire portfolio.

Greg White (00:14:16):

Yeah, that is so distracting. I mean, it’s hard to overstate any anyone who’s here and is in a hard goods industry or any other industry that has long tail of slow moving products. They can attest to the fact that that is terribly distracting and costly to manage that segment of inventory.

Scott Luton (00:14:34):

Jeffrey, Jeff Miller says shortage of AI is driving a lot of this on the flip side of soft demand. And he includes a neat article that I think he shared with me via LinkedIn privately earlier about there’s a severe shortage of 12 ounce cans, which is his, Oh, you know what? He’s not talking about AI. He’s talking about aluminum. Oh, see what he did there. Yeah. We all, we talked so much about AI. It’s a aluminum, right? Yeah. All right. Uh, we have a few of the comments here. Uh, obit is joining from Ghana. Great to have you here. It looks like he is in supply chain working on a certification in Ghana via LinkedIn. Great to have you here. Oh, bed. Uh shidah who is a dear friend of mine from way back when from, uh, apex and ASM days, a fellow supply chain practitioner shot. I hope this finds you well and, uh, great to have you here today

Greg White (00:15:28):

In a minute. It has this thing.

Scott Luton (00:15:32):

That’s right. Alright. Benjamin gold claim. Uh, so Benjamin is asked. Ax is answering Stephen’s question his in his thoughts there’s it depends on what type of quality quality, a product doubtful, but quality of supply chain responsiveness, possibly. And I would say absolutely. Yeah. And that’s what they’re after. Good stuff there. Benjamin, uh, and Jeff, yes. I was little bit slow. We talk about AI so much. So you, you, you tripped me up there, but yeah. Aluminum shortage of aluminum, uh, Sophia, Sophia says, uh, some people have the skill to identify where their Coke was manufactured due to the different sweeteners you used, for example, sugar cane. Greg, do you have that?

Greg White (00:16:18):

I do. In fact, whenever I can get Mexican Coke here in the States, Mexican Coke in many States, um, what do you call that? Something corn syrup, right. Um, anyway, the wickedly fruit that is used in the, what is it called? High fructose high fructose corn syrup, right? It’s a sugar substitute. I can tell the difference. And I prefer real sugar. Like it was when I was a kid of Mexican Coke because in a lot of countries, high fructose corn syrup is illegal.

Scott Luton (00:16:51):

Here is an interesting, so, uh, Faisel says that Coca-Cola got rid of the two liter pineapple flavor in Kenya. It was a fast moving product. Wow.

Greg White (00:17:02):

Cause it’s terrible. That sounds terrible. No, I’m just kidding. Actually. I love pineapple juice. Um, but I don’t know that’s yeah. Um, it could be, it could have to do with supply. I mean, to go back to Jeff’s comment, it could have to do with supply of pineapple at this moment in time. Yep. Um, that, that could be it. I wonder when that happened. And also whether that was a carbonated or an uncompensated beverage that could have some impact.

Scott Luton (00:17:32):

Yes. And what else was in there? Um, lots of great documentaries. Uh, you know, we’ve been at home. Netflix is really fast, even Netflix

Greg White (00:17:42):

Expert. Yeah. That’s all right.

Scott Luton (00:17:44):

Yeah. Netflix or Hulu has got a fascinating, uh, documentary around sustainability in the beverage industry. And, and so check that out, but Hey, Steve Markham, who we spoke with a few weeks ago, Greg, if you remember, uh, C says switching to a different, but related industry, it seems that the beer and alcoholic alcohol beverage industry is going absolutely opposite direction. How is that working for them?

Greg White (00:18:09):

It’s working very well. Steve, one of my companies, blue Ridge owns the wine and spirits and, and alcoholic beverage industry. And, uh, their demand is exploding. Uh, though they are having, uh, there, there is some skew rationalization going on there. So, um, unfortunately that may mean that some of the, uh, less fast moving, um, smaller brews that we’ve come to know and love that have been acquired by the big companies they might go away or at least go away temporarily.

Scott Luton (00:18:48):

Yup. Good stuff. Uh, they are, uh, that beverage industry, the adult beverage industry has, has been tough to keep up with demand. It’s been

Greg White (00:18:57):

Well. I mean, I guess everyone, but those of us here are day drinking on time. I mean, if you look on Facebook, you hear a lot about people day drinking. I wish I was one of those people. I wish I could drink that much.

Scott Luton (00:19:10):

Steve great question though. And a lot there’s only so much to analyze when we get kind of in this hopefully sooner rather than later, as post pandemic areas. And we submitted so many business case studies, uh, but good to have you here. Steve Nearpod is with us. Uh, he, he gets his Coke from a different region. I’ll just leave it at that. Great to have you here in the fall. And thank you for your social media, um, uh, comments over the weekend, uh, on behalf of Greg and I and the entire supply chain now team. Very, very cool.

Greg White (00:19:36):

You great to have you here

Scott Luton (00:19:38):

And one other person right quick for move to the next story. Um, Oh, Carmen, Carmen is joined in via Facebook and great to have you here, Carmen. Thanks for joining us. Okay, so let’s move into headline two and this is a big one. And Greg, uh, we should have blocked out a three hour live stream when we added this one to the docket, because I think this is going to really generate, I know a lot of discussion on our side of the table. We’ll see. How are the audience ways in? So I’m going to just, again, I’m going to pick a few things to kind of set the, uh, the table a bit. This is a, this is a, another big story. Amazon getting a little bit of scrutiny when it comes to its investment practices. So according to the wall street journal over two dozen entrepreneurs, investors and deal advisors are all claiming that the e-commerce behemoth uses the deal-making process to develop competing products.

Scott Luton (00:20:37):

In some cases, Amazon allegedly invested in, in the business and then launched competing products and the business that it invested in tanked because of, of the newfound competition. In other cases, Amazon supposedly met with startups to discuss takeovers and understand how the technology worked. They declined to invest and then guess what they launched competing products. Now, of course, Amazon spokesman has said that the company does not use confidential information gained from these discussions to build competing products. I had to that’s what they, that’s what they said, their response. Uh, former Amazon employees have said that a couple of big factors really lead to the perfect storm, which is fueling law. This on one hand, the company has an of course an intense focus on growth and competition, right? And on the other hand, it’s got fast, enormous resources to innovate and launch products and services.

Scott Luton (00:21:34):

And it’s gotten really good at that. Both areas. They say the company just can’t help itself when it comes to developing new technologies that may rival and compete with current Amazon investments, which is interesting. So Greg, this comes on the heels of an April report by wall street journal as to how the company was using data collected from third party sellers in an underhanded way before you respond, though, I want to share my favorite quote from this article. And those that may be connected with us on LinkedIn may have seen this a J Jeremy Levine of Bessemer venture partners. When he’s speaking on their investment practices, it’s like they are not in any way,

Greg White (00:22:14):

Way, shape or form

Scott Luton (00:22:17):

Proverbial Wolf in sheep’s clothing. They are a Wolf in Wolf’s clothing. Great. I mean, what a great quote there by Jeremy just telling it like it is. Uh, and, and I know he’s preaching to the choir, uh, on this show at least, but, uh,

Greg White (00:22:31):

All right. So Greg, a lot there please weigh in. I have some perf personal experience with these alleged practices from which I am legally excluded from making some very specific comments. So I’m not gonna I’m, I’m going to, uh, address the contents of the article, but I will start with this, uh, as, as the, the comment stream has noted. If you, if you jump into a pit of snakes, don’t be surprised when you get bit, there you go. An 800 pound grill is going to put, behave like an 800 pound gorilla. So, um, um, I am absolutely certain my opinion. Let me stipulate. This is my opinion. I’m absolutely certain that this happens. I can neither refute nor affirm that it is intentional. Um, but it, it absolutely does happen. So, um, look, if you, if you go to 3m or you go to Walmart or you go to another company, anytime you go to another company, you are putting yourself at risk. And the truth is, and I would say this to any, any founder, if your product is that easy to knock off, that they can meet with you and knock it off, then you don’t have a very good product to begin with. I mean, you don’t have something that, that that’s that unique to begin with. So you have to acknowledge that.

Scott Luton (00:24:06):

Can I ask you, let me ask you a question. This also came up when we threw that quote out there on Twitter and it generated some, uh, some discussion when the first great comments came from buyer’s meeting point, which is outstanding supply chain and especially procurement organization. You’ll check that out. Kelly Barner, good friend, the show over there, uh, BMP said, Hey, it reminds us of the Walmart days when we were all wringing our hands about Walmart’s practices. And then of course there were, there was a lot of consensus around that. Greg, I would ask you a question in, in 2020 versus 1985, when ideas, when, when with this technology environment that we’re in and we have access to figuring out how to make things and get it out to market seemingly much easier than 85, when it, you know, when it was, um, uh, the world wasn’t nearly as connected, is there, is it a bigger threat that a behemoth like Amazon, how fast they can operate and, and take the ideas and the IP and the technology and launch it versus, you know, back when Walmart was coming up, when yeah. It put I’m sure. I would imagine allegedly pushed folks around it act like an 800 pound gorilla, but it wasn’t as easy to launch competing services and products. Is that, is that, do you think that’s, there’s a grain of truth in that? No,

Greg White (00:25:24):

I don’t. I think, I think it is, it was every bit as easy then it was just, uh, less publicized right now. It’s not the, it’s not the actions that are more ominous or immediate, and I’m not speaking specifically to Amazon because really where this is kind of where this alleged theft takes place is much more often in technology than in retail. Right. Um, though it does happen with private label products as Amazon has demonstrated. Um, and, and lots of companies have their own brands. Um, but, um, it’s not more prevalent. No. Uh, companies have been stealing technology and ideas from other companies for ever at some big companies stealing from small companies. I actually worked at a company when, before, um, before intellectual property rules were clear, someone walked away from at the time, the largest technology and computer company in the world with technology.

Greg White (00:26:28):

They had built on the job at that company and started an entire company out of that. So it’s very, very common in tech. And it is particularly dangerous though, when you go to someone who’s in or could easily be in the business that you, um, you are attempting. Yup. I will say this as, as crazy as this may sound, you are much safer going to a venture capitalist than going to someone who is competing with technology. And that’s because the venture capitalists, not because they don’t have the ability, they don’t have the desire to build a company that does what you do. They have a desire to invest in a company that makes them 10 X, what they invest by doing what they do. So they may go out and look for somebody who does what you do. They may invest in you, but they are very unlikely to steal. Very, very unlikely to steal your idea, know who you’re talking to when you’re, when you’re sharing the ideas of your company. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:27:36):

I think you make an excellent point backing up a bit where the competition and the alleged theft of ideas and, and business models and technology there’s as much going, but there’s a lot more transparency and information at our fingertips these days. So it’s going to be eat more easily found. I think that’s a great

Greg White (00:27:56):

Point. Yeah, you can’t anymore. Right. But you know, kudos to them

Scott Luton (00:28:00):

Wall street journal for staying on this, a reporting of a variety of practices, you know, um, we’re, we’re big fans here at supply chain out of there legit

Greg White (00:28:09):

Six report, which comes out just about every day. Paul Page does a great job there. So if you’re not tracking that on social, you should. Okay. Um, can I just one more comment before it is not Amazon’s fault that they steal your product. If you, if you present it to them, it’s your fault, your fault. So, you know, is 800 pound gorilla will be an 800 pound gorilla. Don’t jump in a pit of snakes if you don’t want to get bit. Right.

Scott Luton (00:28:39):

Alright. Uh, you’ve got a bunch of fans of your perspective there in the comments and, and Hey, that’s why I tag along rub, rub elbows with Greg all the time. You know, uh, I, I’ve got, I’ve got a, uh, a three inch book notebook full of Greg has items and I just bring them out at the right time. So who knows, we’ll sell it, we’ll sell out a New York times bestseller down the road a bit. Alright. I want to go back to something. I took the visuals off cause Carmen asked about a specific story and, um, I want to just put it out there and, and share that. So Carmen asks, if we’re going to be covering the new big scandal at the international road union, uh, it looks like there was a financial, uh, issue, uh, and it was covered by a couple of different groups, uh, road decryption.com, which we don’t know anything about.

Scott Luton (00:29:26):

But you know, when someone puts a about a story and comments about a story in, in the comments, we want to make sure we, we acknowledge that we’re not prepared that hasn’t hit our radar yet. Carmen, uh, thanks for sharing it and the comments and I check it out after the show. So I want to make sure that we acknowledged, uh, a story that, uh, evidently is really important from where you come from. Okay. So Greg, we’re going to keep driving and we already covered that. Great quote. Alright. So this is like the internet intermission today. We’ve got two more stories coming up. So all of our audience here, um, stay tuned. We’re going to be talking about, um, can supply can global supply chain handle the upcoming vaccine and, uh, diversity in senior levels of leadership in supply

Greg White (00:30:16):

Changed some interesting stuff that Gardner reported, uh, last year,

Scott Luton (00:30:19):

Week. So stay tuned for that. We’d love to get you all to comment. In the meantime, we’ve launched a couple new series here at supply chain. Now both are, and these are just two of them, both are more unique than, than the rest of our content. And, and for the sake of our, especially the crowd that always tunes in on our, uh, supply chain buzz on Mondays. I want to make sure you are aware of it,

Greg White (00:30:39):

Case, uh, uh, these angles are something that you’re interested in. So Greg, tell us about tequila, sunrise and, and what you cover each week. Yeah, well, um, topics like that, the Amazon topic. And so tequila, sunrise is kind of a combination. What I want to do is keep bring and keep supply chain technology in the forefront because it is so important these days, it is changing the lives of people at companies and companies need it now more than ever. So I want to make people aware of what companies are coming, what companies are coming up, getting invested, some even imploding it’s inevitable, right? We’re talking in a lot of cases about startups and early stage venture led companies. So we talk about investment. Who’s investing in what companies, what cool new technologies are bringing, bring, being brought to the marketplace and by popular demand by Dylan and Fred and, um, Molly, chief Moore and, and, and who else?

Greg White (00:31:48):

I was going to say, poly from Raleigh and Pauly from Raleigh. Yeah. It can access and yeah. And Patrick van hall also from kin can access. Um, we talk about some of those companies that are moving and shaking last week. Uh, um, last week we talked a little bit about Manhattan who released earnings on Thursday after the show. Um, we talked a little bit about Kanaxis and what they’re doing and what their stock was doing, and whether we could expect that stock to continue to run like it has, but we also talk about the realities and practicalities of investment. So what are investments looking for? What are investors looking for? Um, you know, we’ll have some founder lessons, some of the things you need to be doing to attract people, but, uh, you know, I started off with, well with investor speak. I started talking about seed rounds and a and growth equity.

Greg White (00:32:40):

A lot of people kind of put the brakes on me and said, what the hell does all that it means? So, so I’ve gone about explaining that. And my goal is for people who are in tech considered starting a tech care about observing tech, or maybe even investing in tech, I want them to understand the language, both spoken and unspoken in investing as well as what’s going on in supply chain tech. So people can learn and be informed and not be surprised when they do something like go to Amazon with their best idea and, you know, cry when it gets stolen.

Scott Luton (00:33:19):

All right. So real quick on that note, uh, let’s see, Jeff, uh, you and Jeff Miller are gonna have to grab a tequila or an adult beverage and discuss that. Cause he mentioned a hold on their Bucko, just cause you should have known better. Doesn’t mean Amazon’s bad behavior

Greg White (00:33:35):

Excusable. I think there’s a great that just to be clear, I did not say it was excusable. I’m just saying, let me, let me put this very clearly. Don’t be stupid. Right? Don’t be stupid because every, if it, as the quote said, everyone knows who Amazon is. Right. So use your head. I wouldn’t, I would suggest by the way, you don’t go to IBM or any of these other companies with those kinds of ideas either. Yep. Um, so I didn’t say that their, their, um, behavior was excusable. And in fact, as you might recall, Jeff, I did state that I had been a party to allegedly similar behavior. Sorry. I have to word that very carefully. Sounds curious where you’re going there.

Scott Luton (00:34:22):

So tequila, sunrise, we’ve had a lot of feedback. I think we’re only what six or seven episodes in and yeah,

Greg White (00:34:28):

Yeah. Sticks is coming Thursday.

Scott Luton (00:34:30):

This coming Thursday. Uh, alright. Give us one thing. So, so one question we got from Stephan about where they can find this, uh, you can find a tequila sunrise currently in not only the main pipeline of supply chain now, but it’s also

Greg White (00:34:45):

Pretty much anywhere. Yeah. You get your podcasts from, so if you,

Scott Luton (00:34:49):

Kayla sunrise really appeals to you and you want to make sure you get it, you can search for that Apple podcast or Spotify, or what have you that that’ll be its own independent channel.

Greg White (00:34:58):

It already is. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:35:00):

Give us a teaser. What’s one thing that you’re gonna be talking about in this coming Thursdays

Greg White (00:35:05):

Episode, I’m going to be talking about a major tech player who got a major investment and why that may or may not be a good, a good indicator for their future

Scott Luton (00:35:18):

Standing. I man, I can’t wait. Let’s, let’s go ahead and do it now. That’d be a great conversation. What a great series a firm with a unique niche. And we were talking earlier, before we went live today, uh, Greg, or maybe yesterday, um, you know, your background,

Greg White (00:35:33):

I mean, you were the perfect host expert for

Scott Luton (00:35:38):

This type of series, especially giving folks information.

Greg White (00:35:42):

Yeah. I’ve got plenty of blasts

Scott Luton (00:35:44):

Bots when it comes to investing and how these things take place and uh, and the models and, and you name it. So I think a lot of folks can benefit, especially if you’re in the startup early stage community or for that matter. If you’re looking to acquire and make some smart investments and get a sense of what’s going on in the supply chain space. So good stuff there,

Greg White (00:36:04):

Tequila. I mean, just to be clear, if you, if you think everything I learned and I, and I’m sharing is because I did everything, right. Absolutely. You know, a lot of what you can enlighten people with is, is your own failures or failings or those sorts of things. And truthfully, I mean, you know, Scott, this is how we started working together. This is what I have dedicated my life to doing is keeping founders from making those mistakes because the process is obfuscated or misunderstood or unspoken. Right? We are speaking the unspoken on tequila. Sunrise love it, love it. Awesome.

Scott Luton (00:36:44):

The fact that Soviet Judy is making, if you know, Sylvia, have you been a part of our previous livestreams you’ll know that she makes a lot of jams blueberry jam. I think in particular as one of her well known products, well, she’s now making blueberry infused vodka, a byproduct of the jam, a new favorite quarantining. She’s calling it good stuff there. Alright. So other quick news series is this week in business history. If you’re a history nerd, history, dork, like I am a, you’ll want to check this out. So we try to take liberties when it comes supply chain, right? We want this to be a big, broad umbrella that so that if you’ve got a, a little sliver of interest and global supply chain, this could be a series

Greg White (00:37:27):

For you. Or if you’re a practitioner that can

Scott Luton (00:37:30):

Good enough, this, this could be a, could offer up some great historical context for some of the biggest brands and stories you see today, tracing it back to their roots. So

Greg White (00:37:41):

Scott, yes. Tell us about your most recent episode at the risk of everybody leaving this episode and going to listen to it right now. Tell us about your most recent episode,

Scott Luton (00:37:50):

This brief, cause we didn’t intend for this to be a commercial, but the Apollo program we covered, uh, uh, two weeks ago and especially some of the business, uh, benefits that came out of that. NASA does a great job, which I learned tracking a wide variety of developments, innovations that come out of all of its, uh, work at NASA. And they’ve got, in fact, they’ve got a team of, of, uh, employees who sole job is to track what comes out of, uh, of NASA programming and launches you name it. So the Apollo program, which is, it is such a landmark achievement for all of humanity that was in the episode. And then this, this, what we released yesterday was all about the cannabis industry. And, uh, if you don’t cannabis, the industry itself has a $12.5 billion industry in the U S and what’s fun. And we were talking about this earlier is it’s largely had a foot and one arm tied behind his back to get to this point. Uh, and there’s a number of different factors that attribute to where it is and where it’s going. I can’t remember the, the, the number, uh, that I shared just yesterday. I want to say 33.5 billion by 2025 is where the industry is going. So

Greg White (00:39:06):

Talk a little bit total. So I happened to be on the board of a company in the cannabis, a tech company in the cannabis industry, and they’re expecting lots of consumer products to have cannabis, either THC or non THC. It’s, it’s over a $2.5 trillion market. Wow. Trillion with a T that’s the trillion dollar question. So Scott’s last two episode all about getting high and who better? Well, I mean, I’m actually fascinated. I haven’t gotten to listen to the, your most recent episode, uh, lately, but the Apollo episode was, um, to, uh, to quote somebody who said, I think it was AA. Who said, who do we have to thank for, um, for writing and narrating that episode and it’s thought loop.

Scott Luton (00:40:00):

Well, I appreciate the comments and the feedback on both these new series. It’s, it’s a passion by Greg put it earlier. It is a passion. It comes from a very genuine, um, uh, position and what we want to do and, and how we want to give back. And, and, uh, it’s a pleasure to be able to research and dive in. And frankly, I’m not an expert in the cannabis industry. I had to do my homework and really piece it together to understand kind of the roots and why it’s here and where it’s going. So y’all check it out. We’d love. We’d welcome your feedback and appreciate the opportunity to share these with, uh, our, uh, buzz audience here today. Okay. So moving right along,

Greg White (00:40:40):

Are you having fun with these folks today? I love watching this feed.

Scott Luton (00:40:45):

They’re having, I think they’re having more fun than we are back and forth. Yeah. Um, and we should acknowledge, uh Jayman who is talking about new series Jaman if you, uh, have not connected with him on social media, he is a supply chain, but also particularly a logistics and transportation guru. And he just one of the most positive and uplifting folks you’re going to be around. He’s launching a new series here. So stay tuned for that and connect with him in particular on LinkedIn, if you haven’t already great people also at chiefs fan, which was like a litmus test. Alright. So buzz headline, number three, everybody. Um, we’re talking about is global supply chain prepared to deliver on a potential vaccine. So believe it, not many say no, let me, let me table only tee this up for us here in this report via the Hindustan times and Bloomberg, I’ll try to go to Bloomberg first, but they, they wouldn’t, they only gave me the first paragraph. So we had to find that via a different distributor. That’s a whole nother discussion. Yes, no kidding.

Speaker 4 (00:41:53):

Um, listeners pay for news or viewers. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:41:56):

Many industry executives, analysts say global supply chain, just isn’t ready, Greg. You know, we’re familiar with many of the conditions that they cite financial challenges with trucking companies, shrinking capacity on container ships and cargo aircraft, and a general lack of visibility for many supply chains. And we’ll talk about why that’s important even more so for the faxing in the moment, uh, from a variety of reports, going back months, we’re all also mostly familiar with both finding a successful vaccine. And then just how challenging and how challenging it is to produce it on a global scale. But the article says that the devil

Speaker 4 (00:42:34):

Is in the distribution. So

Scott Luton (00:42:37):

Check out this quote from the article, a quote, the infrastructure powering the global economy is scaling down for a pro protracted downturn just as pharmaceutical companies need to scale up for the biggest and most consequential product launch in modern history. Wow. Uh, end quote. So also this factoid, I thought was an interesting one from the article. Uh, Julian such I believe is his last name with Emirates Scott cargo. They estimate that Boeing seven 77 freighter could carry 1 million individual doses of a vaccine that required 8,000 planes to cover just half the world’s population. And the article talks a lot about air cargo, but because of two things speed getting it, you know, speed to market. But also, uh, since the vaccines gotta be refrigerated, you it’d be a lot easier to, to make sure that it happens on, on shorter trips. Uh, and on that note, one of the bigger challenges is the refrigeration that vaccine will require. It needs to be between 35 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit. Most likely any variants is going to render the vaccines useless.

Speaker 4 (00:43:52):

So

Scott Luton (00:43:53):

Mark and company, right? A well known pharmaceutical player there, their CEO, Kenneth Frazier said in an interview on leadership live on Bloomberg television that often people quote, often people are talking about the scientific conundrum of coming forward with a vaccine that works in some ways maybe, maybe even a harder problem is what you just put your finger on, which is distribution in quote one last item, two last items real quick from this article one is airport capacity, right? Because even if you can mobilize and even dip into more passenger planes, and we all know how they’ve those for airfreight purposes, let’s say you could have, let’s just say you have all the aircraft at your disposal. You need, you still have to fight for the airport, airport capacity, even during these challenging times where there’s not as many flights and you’ve got to do so very efficiently because you gotta protect the timeliness of that vaccine and, and the, and the, the temperature.

Scott Luton (00:44:52):

And then secondly, perhaps I would argue, this might be the biggest challenge is fairness and access, uh, act, uh, accessibility. Even once you have, as you’re building this Gran, uh, blocking and tackling strategy, right. Of distribution, global distribution, how do you make sure that, you know, it, everyone it’s available for everyone and, and, and how do you, how do you measure that? How do you put the right, uh, system in place? I mean, this is, this is a, uh, a big ordeal. So Greg, before we get our audience to weigh in, what are your initial thoughts there?

Greg White (00:45:33):

Um, I don’t think a vaccine is going to be a problem because I think this is, uh, this is, uh, I still subscribe to the original science before at all. Everything got all mucked up, that this is going to be more like the flu, um, pneumonia cold season. We’re going to have COVID seasons. So there was a doctor at Harvard. I can’t pull up his name right now, dr. Mark something who said, get ready to settle in, but we’re probably going to be facing COVID for the next 12 to 18 years not months. Um, but I think, I think the, let’s just say a vaccine is able to be produced after we spend a trillion dollars trying to, to build one. Then we have to make sure the distribution is fair, but it doesn’t have to be fast. I mean, we, we have clearly identified who is most impacted by this illness. It is the infirmed, right? Those with comorbidities are at, uh, at, uh, uh, exponentially higher danger and those above 65 and then even greater those above 85. So we simply prioritize those people who are at the greatest risk. I don’t see that this is that difficult of a problem to solve. Right. Um, we need the weakest, you know, the most likely to, uh, to be at risk in the, in society. And that, that will limit the strain on the supply chain. Love that. And maybe, you know,

Scott Luton (00:47:10):

To your point, that’s an excellent perspective. Let’s start there. Right. Let’s knock out that, um, the folks that are most at risk and protect them. And then, and then once what’s our global supply chain really, cause it’s going to take, you know, it’s not gonna launch out of the gate and everything hit everything within two hours, you know, like, and you know, like, are your favorite e-commerce provider?

Greg White (00:47:31):

Yeah, boy, we talk about, this really concerns me. Like it’s eminent, which it’s not right. And that it will be right the first time, which it won’t. And that there won’t be an evolutionary process that there always is with vaccines. So I think we have to cool our jets a little bit and be a little bit more, um, a little bit more analytical than hopeful here and recognize that this is a process and it is a one to three year process at the very least. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:48:04):

You know, there, uh, the article and I would invite anybody to get, check out the article. Cause, um, I think while there are some very strong statements made, I think on the balance of the whole article there, it takes a measured approach and kind of just says, Hey, matter of faculty, this is where we are. Uh, and this is what we’re going to have to tackle. I mean, like Greg said, it’s just, that’s part of launching new global supply chains begin with, um, there’s a Flexport executive that really put it out. And Frank terms, um, you know, in, in this industry round table that, that, I’m not sure if the article put together or, uh, an association put together, but we need, you know, what would it, I don’t have it at my fingertips, but what it really reminded me of is the value of just sheer frankness, candor and honesty. Right now, let’s be honest with what, where we are, what we need, what we can do, what we can’t do yet, and then what it’s going to take to make that happen and fill that gap. So, um, but we’ll put Greg, I like that. Like you bring us back down to earth, great article, they’ll check it out. Uh, whether it’s via the Hindustan times or Bloomberg or your, your favorite supplier

Greg White (00:49:15):

Watch and publication. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:49:18):

All right. And there was a variety of great comments that, that we’re not going to be to get all too. I try to share most of them, uh, in the, um, uh, be the visuals, but love to see everybody weighing in. And one person in particular thing was Keith Duckworth said that, Hey, if we’ve got, if we’ve got production taking place globally, rather than just one location, of course, that’s going to make things a lot easier. So we’ll see how, how it plays out. Alright. Our final story of the day, Greg, you’re going to be leading us through some recent, uh, research from Gartner focuses on diversity in the senior levels of supply chain leadership. So please take it.

Greg White (00:49:58):

Yes. Uh, with three daughters, two in the workplace and one in postsecondary education. Well, let’s see, uh, less than four weeks from starting postsecondary education. Anyway, this is something that particularly, uh, hits at the heart of my interest. Um, but the gardener, the fifth annual Gartner women in supply chain survey, um, by, uh, Dana Stiffler vice-president, uh, research vice president at Gartner, uh, talks about diversity in the senior levels of leadership and supply chain, specifically women in the C suite. So to quote, uh, Dana lax, because progress is not something that industry can afford at the moment. And she’s speaking about this moment in regard to transition and advancement and thing and career impact of the COVID-19 and post COVID-19 environment. So let’s look at some of the numbers. So this is a survey that’s been going on since 2016. And the numbers that you see on the screen there, uh, starting 2016 and, and, uh, proceed through 2019.

Greg White (00:51:06):

So in 2000, uh, our 2020, sorry, in 2020 17% of chief supply chain officers in the 177 organizations surveyed are women. That’s about 30 individuals. So everybody knows there that’s up six percentage points over 2000, 19 and 9% since, uh, the first year of the survey. So it’s moving the right direction, but I’d like everybody to look at, especially those last couple of charts, it’s not a distinctively upward trend, right. It’s kind of been flat failing and popped up. And we had an anomaly obviously in 2000, uh, 19 in some, in, in some, in some categories and in 2018 and others, but, but think, consider this women are still highly underrepresented in, in the executive suite. Over 50% of the professional supply chain workforce are female 39% of the overall supply chain workforce. So obviously there is the opportunity, the possibility that women could be at a much, much higher levels or, or a greater numbers in the positions we’re talking about.

Greg White (00:52:27):

So that’s one issue. The second issue is that pipeline is an issue. So Kerryn bursa, um, who was the chief marketing officer at, uh, Logility, she, he had a comment in the last week, which Scott posted and I think 10,000 of us, or so, uh, commented on right. Um, where she is specifically called this out, that that pipeline is an issue here. So, um, one of the concerns, as you can see from the chart in the next to last column, or set of columns is women in director and VP roles have remained pretty flat over the years. Um, and, um, a little bit of an anomaly spike in 2019. Um, so in, in 2020 this year, 63% of the respondents said they have active goals, objectives, initiatives to try to recruit, build pipelines and that sort of thing, but it takes years as, um, as the study points out for this activity to really strengthen the pipeline.

Greg White (00:53:36):

So, um, one of the things that is a bright spot here is that consumer goods and retail, uh, their representation of women in positions that could move to chief supply chain officers much, much higher than in industrial organizations. I can tell you from being a retailer, that’s simply a matter of more women being in the retail and CPG trades than in the industrial trades. So the, the effort needs to start at initial recruitment, not just elevating to VP and director and potentially chief supply chain officer, um, positions. So part of the reason that they, they state for that is that industrial organizations prefer a STEM degree. I can’t tell you the number of times, we have talked about STEM and getting women into STEM with some of the female leaders we’ve had on the show. And we’ll talk about that a little bit as well, but in as industrial organizations prefer a STEM degree at a much, much higher rate for over, over half of them, prefer that for their hires only just under 40% of retail and CPG prefer that for hires and for elevating people into these executive roles.

Greg White (00:54:53):

So, um, there’s a, um, I want to, um, I want to quote ms. Stiffler in about something, um, in regards to pipeline. So this is kind of a long quote, but I think it’s important, not a single respondent cited employee resource groups as a top action for progressing women to senior leadership roles in supply chain leadership development programs or improve work life balance also didn’t make lists. However, 21% of that’s of respondents claim that integrated plant pipeline planning is their best approach. This reinforces what we have found over the years, the right place to focus for diverse senior leadership is the pipeline and the decisions that support it. So, uh, and again, that’s from the vice president, um, analysts at gardener. So w um, one thing this article didn’t do was kind of rounded out and give us some solutions. So I went to another article that I had been studying for awhile by Deloitte, and they actually presented some potential resolutions because, um, as, as is quoted here, those sort of groups, which are, I don’t want to say support groups, but they are peer groups too, to kind of help people express themselves more than to help them move along.

Greg White (00:56:16):

I think that seems to be the effect based on that quote, there, there were some pretty precise recommendations made by Deloitte in their study. So one of the things they cited was intentionality and upskilling women too. And to pull them under the tent toward leadership esteem in the organization, that means get them involved in management and management training, present them back to the organization as potential leaders and continue to, uh, prepare and enable them for that leadership role, more mentorship. And this is really important, more mentorship and sponsorship programs and STEM. Um, the Deloitte study points to programs like maker, girl, if you’re not familiar with that, it’s really cool. It’s, uh, getting, uh, young girls or high school age girls, I think involved in, in three D printing. And of course, girls who code, if you don’t know what girls who code is, I don’t know where you’ve been.

Greg White (00:57:11):

Um, but to build interest and skills in, in female students, academic partnerships, round tables, and other initiatives with universities, we’ve got to start building the pipeline before, uh, people get into the workplace, so that, so that they have, first of all, first of all, they have the affinity for the role, because that’s as big a problem as the skills for the role. There’s nothing magical about men doing supply chain that a woman can’t do, but the affinity for the role is presented at a much, much younger age. It appears for men. So one of the last things is leadership development programs, uh, aimed at not only at senior leadership, but mid VP and mid-level leadership to build leadership skills early in the career phase. So those are some really tangible things, as opposed to kind of the catch phrase, things like resource groups and, um, and leadership mentoring and that sort of things.

Greg White (00:58:16):

There’s some very tactical things you can do in there. I think we’ll put the article, right? The link to that, both articles in the show notes. So you can get that, but Scott, I got to ask you this. We talked to women leaders in the supply chain all the time, I think immediately of Cindy Lago, Sandra McQuillan, Tandra Bellamy, Tonya Allen, dozens more. I know I have one, um, Monica, McCombs, who, um, is a leader in, in food supply chain. Um, what are your thoughts about how we enable more strong female leaders in supply chain

Scott Luton (00:58:55):

Know huge question and one that we could, we could do, uh, an all week live stream and still, you know, would be a surface level in many ways, but I want to invite our audience to share some of them have, are already have, uh, Stephan talks about mentorship. Sylvia talks about how globally it’s even worse, uh, in terms of global logistics, sea level positions occupied by females. I think there’s one thing. Well, yeah.

Greg White (00:59:22):

That’s yeah. That’s an excellent point. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:59:26):

Mmm.

Greg White (00:59:26):

W Y uh, I think it was the Deloitte article made a really, really good point that there are proportionally more women in CTO, CTO roles, chief technology officer roles than CFO or COO roles. So, so the STEM thing must be working to get women into CTO roles. We need to be more intentional about all C-suite roles, but then can also be a help for supply chain.

Scott Luton (00:59:55):

Yeah, I think we must be more intentional about the definition of diversity in all of its facets, all walks of life. I think that’s, that’s something that sometimes these studies, not that you got to have the studies, you have the data, uh, but you know, it can be lost in the shuffle that it, that it’s, it’s too just two definitions of diversity, you know, alpha and beta, you know, male and female. Um, but I think what’s really important. And, and to your initial question is we’ve got to be willing, um, to have the uncomfortable conversations and the, you know, seek first to understand and not feel threatened because it’s, it’s, you know, it’s not a zero sum game. Everyone can win every so many studies out there. Talk about from a data-driven standpoint. Um, what can we gain by ensuring there’s healthy levels of diversity at all levels?

Scott Luton (01:00:51):

Um, when I think about supply chain, um, you know, I think we’re on a mission Greg, to give a voice to all a voice globally folks that are passion, that they don’t get a chance to share the story. Oftentimes they’re in the trenches or making it happen. Uh, and they don’t get enough recognition. You know, frankly, when I see numbers like this, while we’ve got a number of efforts going on to diversify that voice, it’s just not nothing’s good enough because collectively the industry is not, we’re just not to your point. How’d you put it earlier. You said that, uh, based on what the trends were, it did not, it was not decisively upward. Um, w I came here, how you put it, that is so true because an all too often, and we saw it play out in the social media commentary is folks, hang their hat on that one year, year over year gain and think, okay, this project’s done. Let’s move on to the next project. And, and, you know, that’s one of the biggest challenges we’re up against, uh, when it comes to systemic lack of opportunities

Greg White (01:01:57):

For all ages,

Scott Luton (01:01:59):

You know, so, you know, again, for me, it’s what we’re trying to do, have the uncomfortable conversation and help facilitate it, uh, help fill in those gaps that we all have in our perspective. And don’t feel threatened, you know, be genuine and lean in to steal that, that phrase from a man in show me 50, to really understanding other folks from all walks of life. And hopefully that that’s how I feel. And hopefully it comes across as, as, um, a genuine path forward.

Greg White (01:02:27):

I think we have to be more, we have to, as you said, seek first to understand, but begin with the end in mind. And we have to measure to the end, not measure whether we have a program. I think that’s essentially what both of these studies are telling us. People are putting. And we heard this in our discussion around race in supply chain and in the workplace, right? People are happy to put a prog, uh, program in place and call that progress, right? Let us not let us not distort action with progress, right? Progress is defined by the outcome and we need to start to measure the outcome, not the action. And when we start to hold companies accountable for the outcome, rather than the action, that’s when things will change. And there are certain companies out there that have that focus, there are certain that don’t yet, but look, no, I don’t think any, any company wants to hold anyone down.

Greg White (01:03:27):

Yup. Right. They just don’t know how to lift them up. And they have to work very hard to know how to do that. I would also state that this is a bigger problem, depending on the society that you live in. I mean, we are very aware, very active. We’re not very well directed, but we are very aware and very active. And we’re getting there in, in the States, in other societies. It’s not, it’s not as intentional to be helpful. And in some cases, I mean, I’ve traveled the world. In some cases, it’s actually intentional to be, um, whatever you want to call it, unhelpful. Yup. Maintain the status quo, right. So much more heavy lifting as well.

Scott Luton (01:04:14):

That’s right. So much heavy lifting still to be done. I’ll read this from a man to here where I feel that efforts to involve women in STEM programs have huge benefits. The fact is, as Curran said, crim versa. The women are there in supply chain. It’s the support, encouragement, and opportunities available along their career journeys or what is needed to get women into the C suite we’ll put there. And Sylvia adds to that inclusion, right. And diversity. And, you know, I came here who put this? I think it might’ve been DC. Man’s, uh, uh, for Gale us for Gola, sorry. Um, in our last webinar where she said, diversity is not good enough, we gotta also equally focus on, uh, inclusivity. So we’ll put there Sylvia, great point. And Amanda agrees as well.

Greg White (01:05:05):

Okay. Greg

Scott Luton (01:05:08):

Love, um, how we tackled and how you tackled this last item here today. I mean, we’re talking three and Coke, Cola was important, but, but some heavy hitters here today, and I appreciate your analysis and thought leadership, making a lot of this stuff easy to understand. And also what’s really important is we don’t look at the headline and make a snap judgment without really diving in to what’s behind. I think that is so important.

Greg White (01:05:38):

We’re all right. Yeah. I think also you have to, I mean, I mean this particular article, I rediscovered something, which is cross-pollinate with additional data, right. Because what I saw distinctly missing, and it’s not Gardener’s job to do this, but what I saw distinctly missing was a resolution to this problem. They right. They are analysts, they’re an analyst group and they announced and identified the issue. It’s not their job to resolve it. So I sought out an article that would help us resolve it because look here, we want to present the news. Of course our opinions, but also resolutions. That’s important to us.

Scott Luton (01:06:17):

Yup. Great point. And, uh, love the comments. So, uh, we don’t have it set up yet, but I want to invite all of our audience. We had a, uh, an outstanding setup stand up and sound off a program a week or two ago where we had a very Frank conversation on race and industry. And we’re, we’re planning on following that up with a program in September that is equally as Frank and interactive. Uh, we, we started to put the panel together, led by Elba prayer, Gallagher, which of you, if you’ve ever tuned into our programming, you probably heard one of her 18 episodes with us, great stuff. Uh, but come out and, and really participate and share like shied is doing here, what you’re thinking. So Shada says, I think also there are not too many women that know about supply chain. Every time I say supply, uh, I’m asked, what is that? And Greg, you had some interesting comments around that. I think I’m just in the, in the, in maybe in the 400 episodes.

Greg White (01:07:13):

Right. Well, I mean just thank you. I mean, if we can thank COVID-19 for anything, I suppose it is that people now know what supply chain is, right? You, you know, that it is well understood when your parents and your children don’t ask you at the dinner table, what it means when you say supply chain. But I think it is true. There is a segment of the population who still don’t get it. I’m going to tell you that if you don’t get it, Latiya Thomas who is about to be a recent grad, about three, a grad of Morgan state university, and is the co president of the apex chapter at, at Morgan state university asked her, she gets it.

Greg White (01:07:53):

And by the way, that’s what more, that’s another thing we need. I don’t know who said it first. I’ve heard Elvis say it before. If you can see it, you can be it. Right. I think that’s an important thing. And you know, one of the things that organizations need to do is they need to highlight those female leaders in supply chain to, you know, to give somebody to aspire to why did I want to be a baseball player? Cause I saw Amos sodas make a diving catch and toss me the ball in the stands. We need people to see female chief supply chain officers make a diving catch and save a company from ruin and toss the ball in the stands,

Scott Luton (01:08:32):

Standing, perhaps any visual. And on that note, we’re going to have to wrap up for today. Big, thanks to all the attendees. We invite you to check out our, our next webinar. We’ve got a few others in the pipeline. Uh, Wednesday, August 19th, we’ve got rod Shork and, and Kelly Barner, who we were talking about earlier in today’s show with buyer’s meeting point, uh, they’re gonna be talking about post COVID 19 supply chains is getting a ton of attention from the very wide variety of, of, um, folks, organizations as it should be. Well, I can promise your rod and Kelly are gonna offer a unique spin on that, especially with a lot of emphasis on, uh, procurement. And then if you need anything that, you know, we talked about new series, we talked about webinars, we talked about some other upcoming events coming up. There’s one great clearing house. If you can’t find it via Google or anything

Greg White (01:09:21):

That female, chief exactly, or C suite.

Scott Luton (01:09:26):

So either check out our URL, supply chain, that radio.com or shoot a note to Amanda, amanda@supplychainatradio.com. And we will, uh, do our best to serve as a resource for you. But, you know, I can’t say enough, Greg, even everything we’re doing is still not good enough. It’s not good enough. We got to continually reinvent. It’s like skew rationalization, right? Just because it works last year or last month is no guarantee that it’s going to be effective and successful this month or this year. And I think there’s lots of transfer to that, to these, these huge leadership issues and issues of impacting opportunities for all. We’ve got to constantly evaluate and assess and, and take action to fix the gaps that will appear. So it’s like, you know, the new car models, right? I mean, there’s always a better way. There’s always a better vehicle. There’s always a better engine or, or are impactful, um, uh, innovation that brings more to the table. And you know, that’s what we try to do here at supply chain now. And I’m very thankful and grateful for everyone that has tuned in and been a part of the conversation today. Greg, last word, before we sign off here,

Greg White (01:10:44):

One of the things we have to do is stop saying, it’s not enough. One of the things we have to do, we talked about this. I think it was Friday with Amanda. Um, she had, she was struggling with something and I relayed something I learned when I was racing mountain bikes, which is, if you’re riding on the edge of a cliff, don’t look down the cliff, look at the path in front of you. Don’t focus on what could go wrong or what has gone wrong in the past, focused on where you want to get to. And I think it’s time for us to shift our focus

Scott Luton (01:11:14):

From talking about what we’ve and leaning on what we have failed to do in the past and start to focus on what we need to do in the future and set all of our energy and all of our efforts down that path. All right, on that note, as Greg throws the challenge down, which is a good one, uh, really enjoyed today’s conversation, thanks to the audience, makes these as much as I enjoy doing this with Greg. And it’s a labor of love to see the comments and the feedback and, and what you see and your perspective. I mean, that’s what makes live streaming. So really neat. So wherever you are, whether they’re from India or Mali or, um, Charleston, South Carolina, or here in Atlanta, thanks so much for tuning in on that note, you know, Hey, do good, give forward, be the change that’s needed. Don’t look down. As Greg said, you know, go way down. That’s right. That’s right. Set the vision and go after it and own that. And we’ll see you next time here on supply chain now. Thanks for budding.